Since 2013, KMUTT Ratchaburi has worked closely with communities and schools along the porous borderbetweenThailand and Myanmar and in the vicinity of KMUTT. In an effort to promote the education opportunities for all and improve well beings of the communities, a number of projects and activities of KMUTT with over 50 schools have been spawned. Unfortunately, due to the school closure and a transition to home learning in the wake of COVID-19 have inevitably widened the educational gap for those in the remote communities. KMUTT, has therefore, initiated “an Education Volunteer of the Village Project” to support, follow up and monitor development of kindergarten and elementary pupils at four schools located along the porous border between Thailand and Myanmarand in semi-urban and semi-rural areas.
To offer those less privileged children a chance to continue their study as usual, KMUTT has cooperated with the schools in organizing the sub-village based learning in their areas. Namely, the learning can take place at pupil houses, village pavilions, temples, and government venues. The pilot project which consists of the Village Education Volunteers and Sub-village learning has thus been launched.
Beginning in May 2020, the project was first funded by KMUTT Ratchaburi and has later been given financial support as the wage for job-seekers from the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation (MHESI) to reward the volunteers from June to September. In June, KMUTT provided the schools with 45 activity baskets to promote cognitive development of preschoolers as well as audio visual aids. The volunteers have also discovered another problem. In the normal situation, those little ones who normally have free lunch at schools. But during the past summer break and expanded closure, those disadvantaged have not received food at the schools for over three months. As the schools were not given the lunch budget from the government during the school break, KMUTT then supported rice and other dried food for the hungry kids along with COVID-19 and dengue fever prevention kits to help them stay healthy.
